"Lettres portugaises" by vicomte de Gabriel Joseph de Lavergne Guilleragues is an epistolary work published anonymously in 1669. Five passionate letters form a monologue of love, moving through stages of faith, doubt, and despair toward a tragic conclusion. Initially believed to be authentic correspondence from a Portuguese nun to her French lover, the work became a European sensation with numerous editions and translations. Its emotional intensity established a precedent for sentimentalism in European literature and influenced the development of the sentimental and epistolary novel genres. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
